Tokyo film festival to screen two Vietnamese works

"He Serves Fish, She Eats Flower" and "The Immortal" will be screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival next month.

"Chang Dang Ca, Nang An Hoa" (He Serves Fish, She Eats Flower), directed by Phan Dang Di, will be shown in the "World Focus" section which introduces prize-winning works from various international film festivals as yet unseen in Japan.

A still from "He Serves Fish, She Eats Flower". Photo by TIFF.

The film depicts the drama of Thang learning how to make tofu pudding in order to win the heart of Van, a girl he meets at a tofu pudding stall. They fall for each other, but have a lot of differences. Thang tries to cook one last dish to have the heart of the woman he loves.

The 52-minute movie is a part of the HBO Asia's eight-part food anthology series "Food Lore", telling stories related to the cuisine culture of 8 Asian countries.

This is the 2nd time Phan Dang Di has his film showed at TIFF. In 2017, "Cha Va Con Va..." (Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories), a story about disillusionment within the young generation in the 1990s' Saigon, gained a lot of positive comments.

On the TIFF website, the latest movie from Victor Vu was introduced as "the first feature film from Vietnam to talk about immortality, it tells the story of a man who goes against nature to seek eternity". The movie was released in Vietnam in Octorber 2018.

The 32nd TIFF will be held in Tokyo, Japan from October 28 to November 5. Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi will serve as the President of the International Competition.